Charleston, SC - Day 3

We spent Thanksgiving day doing nothing but relaxing.  Then we went out to dinner with new cruiser friends Steve and Margo, who are cruising south for the second time on their 40' Beneteau, Mairead.  They are about our age and enjoying retirement much like we are, and we found we had a lot in common.

We started out today by renting a car and taking the pups to be groomed.  The grooming salon was called Coats and Tails and they did a really good job:

 Jazz

Oscar

While the dogs were at the groomer, we went to Harris Teeter and did some big-time provisioning.  Our slip neighbor, H.B. who lives here part-time on his Pacific Seacrest, Take Five, went with us.  He is a retired dentist in the Air Force and is currently doing work on his boat to get her ready to cruise south.  He hopes to head out soon.  

After putting everything away, we did a load of laundry, then went back to pick up the dogs.

With our chores done and plenty of day left, we drove into town in order to walk around with the Black Friday crowds.  King Street in downtown Charleston is pretty much an outdoor shopping mall, with every store you would see in any mall.  And the entire area encompassing 10-12 blocks was packed with people.  We wandered through and made it to Market Street and then walked through the famous City Market:

It, too was completely packed with people, but I did manage to buy some garlic cheese grits and speckle grits with bacon.  Either will be great with the shrimp I bought at Harris Teeter for dinner tomorrow night.

Could not pass this up (bought some as wall):

We got a very nice surprise this afternoon.  Turns out friends Nancy and Geoff, who used to live in Annapolis and now in Alexandria, were in Charleston for Thanksgiving and Nancy had seen this blog and saw that we were here too!  So they came over and visited with us.  Fantastic to see familiar faces:

After Nancy and Geoff's wonderful visit, we had dinner with another couple we met a few days ago, Keith and Ida, who are cruising south for the 1st time on their 27' Southern Cross sailboat, Cheers.  They are in their late 30's/early 40's and were both chemists at Merck until they got laid off late last year.  They got very good severance packages, so they decided to take a few years off and cruise on their boat, first to the Keys, then the Bahamas, then to Central America.  Neat couple.

We are meeting a lot of very interesting people on this trip, as we were told we would by everyone who has done this before.  Can't wait to find out who we see tomorrow!